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Sipdown! (17 | 378)

This one surprised me a bit. It has chocolate flavoring in it, which I am generally not a fan of. However, I enjoyed this one and it does remind me of some sort of caramelly candy bar. I think it’s probably because there’s much more caramel flavoring than there is chocolate, and there are also cocoa nibs. The other interesting thing is this also has an apple black tea mixed in, which gives a hint of fruity candy.

I think it perfectly embodies the concept, tastes just like some amalgamation of candy that I would expect to get while trick or treating. I don’t think I’ll go out and order a bag, but it’s a fun tea and I wouldn’t mind having some around for Halloween next year as well. :)

This is from my last order, but apparently I never wrote a note for it, so here we are.

I quite like cinnamon apple honeybush blends, there was one from New Moon Tea Co that I loved, but they don’t seem to make it anymore. This is a lovely substitute though. The cinnamon is the stronger flavor, but I can taste sweet apple as well. I like that the cinnamon mostly tastes natural, though there is a little touch of cinnamon candy that comes through in the finish. The honeybush base is woody and nutty and just so cozy paired with these flavors. I don’t taste the rooibos, which I’m not displeased about lol.

Yummy tea! This one might become a cupboard staple for me, and certainly so in the cooler months. I wouldn’t mind just a touch more apple, but still a wonderful tea as-is.

A new one I picked up from Old Barrel.

To be honest, I mostly just wanted to order their Pumpkin Chai, but I couldn’t bring myself to spend $15 on shipping for one tea, so naturally I spent $60 more on other teas that were all impulse purchases… Yep, this is the logic that landed me with 200+ teas in my cupboard ha ha. Oops? XP

Anyway, I was a bit worried about this one when I smelled it, because I could only smell coconut. Oh yeah, forgot to mention, I don’t even generally like coconut teas but somehow I ended up buying two (this one, and the Coconut Crème Pu Erh). So yeah, there’s that.

However, I am enjoying this tea steeped up. It has a nice balance of soft, fluffy lemon notes with creamier coconut on a smooth and mellow bai mudan base. A bit decadent and yet so light and airy, perfect for the afternoon or evening. I’m not sure I would restock this when I run out, but I don’t think I’ll have a problem sipping through the tin.

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I quite like this one – the apple chai and chestnut make for a cozy and somewhat desserty combination. I seem to have gotten rather a lot of ginger in this last cup, I guess the pieces might have fallen to the bottom a bit because I don’t remember Spiced Apple Chai being quite so gingery. There’s something slightly gingerbready about it, I guess from the chestnut black tea mixed with the spices of the apple chai. But I still taste some apple as well, so perhaps some kind of gingerbread bar with apple jam layered in. Sadly I don’t taste hojicha.

I don’t know if I would go out and order a big bag of this, but I would consider picking up some more next fall. Although it is a bit close to some other gingerbread teas I already have…

Ordered this one because it sounded good and I’d heard good things about it.

Sadly, not loving it. I guess I was hoping for more fruit notes, mostly I just taste the earthy puerh paired with woody bourbon vanilla. I’m not generally a vanilla tea lover. I like vanilla in general, but plain vanilla-flavored teas aren’t really my jam. And to me, this sort of falls into that category because I’m just not tasting much of the pomegranate.

Putting the rest of the sampler pouch into my rehoming box!

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Second tea down from the pretty fall stackable tin I bought on impulse. I actually really liked this one – it does taste just like apple cider. Specifically, it reminds me of the instant apple cider in the packets that my mom used to buy. Nice crisp apple flavor with just a touch of mulling spices. I do think it could use perhaps a hint of tartness, just to give a bit of dimension.

But I really enjoyed these 12 teabags, so I might need to go and see if they offer the tin of this on Amazon… :P

Sipdown! (14 | 375)

Finally finished off the Pumpkin Spice sampler! This remained my favorite of the bunch, I don’t generally love marzipan-flavored teas, but here it plays a nice supporting role to the mellow pumpkin spice. It’s sweet but not overly so, and the marzipan has a nice richness to it that pairs well with the creaminess of the white tea.

All that being said, this is a bit too pricey for me to purchase a full bag of it. But I really enjoyed sipping through the sample pouch. Now that I’ve finished this sampler, I’ll have to move on to the other samples I purchased! :)

Starting off the Studio sampler with this Calcifer-inspired blend.

It’s a nice enough blend, a combination of lapsang, roasted oolong, and hojicha. Nice balance of the savory smoke with the cozy toasty notes. However, I wish I was tasting more of the spices – there’s cinnamon and turmeric here and I feel like I taste neither of them. I think a bit of cinnamon sweetness would really add some nice dimension here and would offset the more savory notes well.

Ah well. Still a tasty tea, but not something I would personally order.

Sipdown! (13 | 374)

So I ordered a whole bunch of these Nightmare Before Christmas fandom teas from Adagio, because a friend (Marjorie AKA knittingopera) had recommended one of them in one of her empties videos. Of course, somehow that translated into me ordering almost all of them that were available. Funny how that works… :P

I’ve kind of been saving them, but I figured since it’s mid-October now, I should probably get to work on sipping through the little tins. This one is a blend of pumpkin spice black tea, coconut black tea, and vanilla oolong. It smells wonderful dry, like a sort of pumpkin spice and eggnog combo. But I don’t find that it translates very well to the actual flavor, there’s not a lot of creaminess going on and I don’t really get vanilla. The coconut is almost a touch soapy? Not sure if the shreds are old or if it’s just coming off that way.

So mostly I get mediocre black tea with a touch of spice and a bit of soapy coconut. Definitely a far cry from the amazing dry scent. Oh well, coconut teas are never my favorite anyway so I can’t be too upset ha ha.

So I ordered the advent calendar from Sipology, and they had a special offer where since I spent more than $65, I could get the monthly special for half price. For October, it was three 25g pouches of matcha for $18. Normally you can only get their matcha in 100g (?!) bags so I figured I would try it, even though two of the three flavors are sweetened.

Unfortunately, I can’t get past the stevia aftertaste here. The matcha itself seems decent, it’s a bit on the yellower side of green but the flavor seems nice enough. I do like the salted caramel flavoring, and overall it’s not ridiculously sweet considering it contains both sugar and stevia. But that cloying stevia sweetness at the end of the sip, sigh…

Into the rehoming box it goes! :P